Mississippi's 'Best' Goes Sour

by Brian Johnson
Dec. 20, 2006

This story will appear in the Dec. 21 print edition.

Nearly two months after the Mississippi’s Best Awards turned into a debacle, with promised entertainment and food undelivered, event organizer Cyrus Webb has yet to repay debts related to the event and has offered shifting accounts of finances.

Marilyn Moering, who is the executive director of the non-profit Building Bridges, Inc., and was on the planning committee for the awards, said that she loaned Webb $3,800 just before the event with Webb’s assurance that the money would be repaid to her within days. Now, Moering has not been repaid, and she has not heard from Webb.

Jackie Watson, who was assistant communications director for the event and also on the planning committee, said that Webb has not been in contact with the planning committee and has never provided them with receipts or financial accounts. Webb did not attend an emergency meeting of the committee the Monday after the event, and he cancelled a Nov. 14 press conference where he promised to provide an account of what happened.

On Dec. 12, Webb told the Jackson Free Press that he’s made many attempts to contact the planning committee and that it is they who have not communicated with him, which both Watson and Moering dispute.

“What bothers me is that anyone would question my motives for doing anything, considering that all of the things I do, I don’t make a big deal out of,” Webb told the JFP.

Webb promoted the Oct. 28 award ceremony as a major event, with a “Passion for Fashion” event on the preceding Friday, featuring designers and models from the Bravo show “Project Runway.” Webb promised a dinner on Saturday where celebrities like Morgan Freeman would present awards in more than 40 categories.

The Friday fashion event was publicly cancelled the day of the event, Oct. 27, though Webb sent an Oct. 15 e-mail to inform Project Runway that he was withdrawing his offer to cover their expenses. “I am sorry to say though that as of Friday, Oct. 13, 2006, we had not received the check from our grant that is covering the guests we are bringing in,” Webb wrote. “Because of this, we are sorry to say that we will have to withdraw our offer to cover your expenses that were a part of the Mississippi project.”

Webb mentioned none of this to planning committee members or members of the public, and he acted as if everything was still on track as late as that Friday afternoon. The first sign of trouble, according to Moering, was when Webb called her at 4:30 p.m. to say that a check he was counting on hadn’t cleared, and he needed money to book the Regency Hotel for the fashion event and to secure the TelCom Center for Saturday.

“The event was supposed to be starting about that time,” Moering said. “The only reason why I did it was because I was on the planning committee. My back was to the wall.”

Moering said she gave Webb two personal checks, one for $1,800 and another for $2,000. She came to the hotel later that evening, expecting the Project Runway show to be underway, and learned from hotel staff that the event had been cancelled.

The next day, Webb told Moering that it was too late for checks. “He said he needed $2,000 in cash for the TelCom Center and the $1,800 to make sure security and insurance was taken care of,” Moering said. He promised to return the money to her the following Monday.

The rest of the event began to unravel that Saturday. The TelCom Center was not even booked until 11:30 a.m. that day, according to Watson. Webb did not book a dining room or hire caterers, so there was no dinner, though Webb had promised as early as July 15 that dinner would include roasted artichoke hearts with cheese, smoked salmon, marinated artichoke hearts with cream cheese and crab, honey baked ham, top round of beef, apricot pork loin and many other dishes.

Webb printed out awards for each recipient and ran to Office Depot on his own printer for frames that Saturday afternoon. Promised entertainers like Mysterious from the TV show “Making the Band,” Terrence J and Rosci, who host BET’s hit show “106 & Park,” the artist Scar, who was recently featured on the OutKast single “Morris Brown,” and Morgan Freeman, among others, did not appear because Webb had never confirmed or worked out payment with them. There were no gift bags or glossy award books, as Webb had promised in promotional materials that solicited advertisers.

Moering had hoped to use the awards to promote HIV awareness, and her organization Building Bridges had been promised a share of proceeds for that purpose. For her, the awards became an embarrassing nightmare. “We had no idea what was going on,” Moering said. “Everyone just looked stupid.”

“I was hurt. It was so much to look forward to. There had never been an event like this. It’s like getting ready for the prom, and then you show up, and there is no prom,” Watson said.

Webb acknowledged that he knew before the event that some promised acts would not appear. “It became a money issue,” he said, referring to Mysterious, Scar and the Project Runway event. Nevertheless, Webb posted on jacksonfreepress.com on Sept. 2 that Mysterious was confirmed. As for Freeman, Webb said he was “under the impression” that Freeman was coming because blues man Bobby Rush had told him Freeman would come “if he were in town.” Webb insists that he never said “for sure” that Freeman would be there.

In a Sept. 5 post to jacksonfreepress.com, however, Webb wrote that Freeman had been confirmed. “We’re glad to announce that the recipient of the MS’ Best ‘Lifetime Achievement Award,’ Morgan Freeman, has been confirmed for the event that will take place on Saturday, Oct. 28, 2006,” Webb wrote.

After the event, Moering told Webb they had to have a meeting that Monday morning, where he could explain what had gone wrong. The planning committee met at Moering’s office that Monday, but Webb did not show up. That evening, Moering went to Webb’s house.

“He couldn’t really explain anything to me,” Moering said. “He said he didn’t set out to defraud anybody, and I just told him what it looked like. And that I needed my money back.”

She said has not received any money or even any communication from him since.

Webb did not list debt to Moering in two separate financial accounts he provided to the JFP. Nor did he mention a debt to her during two interviews involving detailed discussions of revenues, and he said then that he was in close consultation with her. When presented with Moering’s claim about the debt, Webb reluctantly acknowledged that he owed her $3,800, but said “that was something different.” He continued to insist that they spoke often. “We’ve talked on the phone at least five or six times since the event,” Webb said. He went on to say that he would have to pay Moering back out of his own pocket when he was able, because he now claimed that the event made no profit.

In a Nov. 13 e-mail, Webb wrote that the event took in $6,080 from 175 tickets sold and that expenses were $4,042. He said that AIDS Action in Mississippi, Grace House and the Rankin County Arts Alliance would receive $500 each, which he would send out that week.

On Dec. 12, Webb sent another, different financial account that claimed only 109 tickets were sold for $3,805. He listed expenses totaling $5,534, for a loss of $1,729. Webb claimed that in original financial accounts he did not include all expenses, and he said that he exaggerated income in the earlier accounts. “Actually, $2,000 (of the $6,080 Webb originally claimed in income) was my money,” Webb said. He did not explain how this error had occurred.

Now, he said that the contribution to Grace House would have to wait. “We’re still going to be making the contribution (to Grace House), but it’s not going to be the amount we originally expected it to be,” Webb said.

Moering had already refused the $500 her organization was due, saying that she considered money from the proceeds tainted and did not want her organization to take it.

Valencia Robinson of AIDS Action in Mississippi said that she had also refused to take promised proceeds from the event.

This is not the first time Webb has failed to deliver on both money and promises, according to rapper Lil’ Shane. In September 2005, he participated in a talent show Webb organized and won first prize, which was $2,000. Webb told him he would receive the money in about a week, and he promised Lil’ Shane a meeting with the mayor. More than a year later, he has not received the award money. His award was a computer printout in a frame.

“There was supposed to be a dinner at that show, too,” ‘Lil Shane’s father and manager Jeff Roberts said, “but it never happened. We never even got the $25 entry fee back.”

Ora Williams, whose daughter performs under the name Caya, says Webb owed her daughter $300 after the talent show. After the show, she tried to reach Webb repeatedly without success. “Even his momma said she didn’t know where he was, and we never got that money,” Williams said.

“They really are separate things, but I—I mean, the question is fine,” Webb said when asked about the talent show. “I’m not saying I don’t want to comment on it, but it doesn’t tie into what happened with this event. I wouldn’t mind talking about it, but maybe after we’re done with the awards thing. It really is a different thing.”

Webb said he took responsibility for what went wrong with the awards, but in the end, he remained defiant. “It’s been disappointing to me, it’s been hurtful to me, because all of this has been made to seem like I did all of this to scam people out of all this money,” Webb said. “I just don’t understand how they think that with an event like this that would even be possible. I don’t want to get into trying to push stuff off on other people, but I’m finding myself having to defend things that in some ways shouldn’t even have to be defended.”